


Black Cat

by marvcltrash



Series: The Black Cat College AU [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: College AU, M/M, Trans Pidge, hunk is only mentioned tho, nonbinary hunk, there will be more of hunk later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 14:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7443550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvcltrash/pseuds/marvcltrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>we live on the same floor and you made your cat hide in my dorm because he’s not supposed to be here and you saw the RA, I know we’re strangers, but can we share him he’s helping me with my anxiety?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so the prompt originally said dog, but... Lions are cats, and I'm a meme.

 

Pidge was in his freshman year at Garrison University, and it had been entirely  _ wonderful.  _ There were so many new things to learn and he was passing with every single person he met and the library was extensive. They let him work on computers and never misgendered him on calls or called him “Katie.” It wasn’t even that he particularly hated the name Katie, surely, he would name his daughter after the girl he used to be, maybe, if that ever happened, but it wasn’t  _ his name.  _ His name was Pidge, and, at Garrison, everyone else recognised that too. 

Also, without his mother or brother or father around to interrupt his studies and experiments, he spent almost all of his time by himself. That is, when Hunk and Lance, two friends he made by complete accident, didn’t come drag him out kicking and screaming. Which, had happened once or twice. They were a heck of a lot bigger than him, and Hunk was an affectionate person even with taller dudes like Lance. Hunk probably got the trans thing better than anyone else, seeing as he introduced himself with “Hi, I’m Hunk, he/him/they/them, you?”. It was probably the best first experience Pidge could have had. 

He was supposed to be focussing on studying right now, but there was a desperate knocking on his door. Pidge rose slowly with narrowed eyes, opening the door slightly only to have it pushed open by a desperate looking man with a black cat clinging to him, surprisingly quiet. “Hi, I’m Shiro, and this is Noir, and I’m sorry. Do you mind if I hide him in here for like twenty minutes?” the tall man - Shiro - rushed through, though Pidge had only ever seen him calm before. And, he had seen Shiro before, the only senior on their entire hall, besides Coran, the RA. He must be related to this freak out. 

“May I ask why?” Pidge asked, deceptively calm as he realised that having another boy in his bedroom might be a little problematic, what with his extra binder just hanging in the open closet. He never had other people in his room. Shiro looked almost shocked that he had forgotten to mention why, or maybe that Pidge had asked. “My roommate, Keith, you may know him, Coran thinks he has something illegal in our dorm? I’m not sure what he means, but I don’t want to lose Noir because Keith is irresponsible,” he said, calmer this time. 

“Well,” Pidge sighed, resigned, “you’re already here. Make yourself comfortable. And, your cat, I suppose.” Shiro looked disproportionately grateful and sat right down on the floor, petting Noir back down to calmness. Pidge released another sigh and sat down about half a foot away from the senior, as he supposed he couldn’t get much done with the other in his room. “I’m Pidge, by the way,” he said, voice intentionally light. “I know,” Shiro said automatically, and then had the decency to look a little embarrassed. Pidge was certainly a little embarrassed, and he hadn’t even said anything. 

“Lance told me. He comes around to bother Keith sometimes and he told us that you had the one single on this hall. I figured if you knew Lance, you couldn’t be that bad,” the elder continued as explanation. “You bring your cat to anyone who ‘can’t be that bad’?” Pidge teased lightly before realising that he was basically talking to a stranger, and blushed. He was lucky it was always relatively dim in his room, because he never turned on the overhead light, rather using the small lamp on his desk. 

Noir climbed placidly from Shiro’s lap to Pidge’s, and he was panicked for a moment before his fingers found themselves scritching behind one of her ears. Shiro seemed to have calmed, and the chill nature of everyone else in the room stilled Pidge’s anxious mind, giving him a reprieve from the usual constant motion. They sat in relative silence for the next twenty minutes, and for some reason, it wasn’t awkward in the least. Usually, anything involving Pidge was at least slightly uncomfortable, but it seemed to be working out in his favor this time. Despite having said all of perhaps thirty or so words to Shiro, Pidge felt a growing affection for the older man that he quickly attempted to squash. Even if he was cute, he could be an asshole, and Pidge couldn’t afford distractions anyway. 

They heard Coran stomping his way down the hallway, his accented voice piercing the ears of everyone on the hall. He mustn't have found anything incriminating. Shiro grinned on his way out, taking his cat out of Pidge’s lap and walked to the door. “Thanks,” he said, smile widening, before he disappeared to his own dorm, closing the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

It had been one week and two days, maybe, since Shiro and Noir had walked out Pidge’s life, and he didn’t really miss them until the anxiety literally overwhelmed him. He remembered the calm quiet of hosting them in his room, like a secret, and he wants it back as his chest tightens beneath his binder. He would get top surgery just to never have to look at a bra or a binder ever again.

He talked himself back down to calmness by thinking of stroking Noir’s fur, with the calm presence of Shiro somewhere vaguely to his left. He even sat exactly in the same place on the floor, but it didn’t help. He talked himself into walking across the hall within the next thirty minutes, knowing it would help more than anything else. He knocked on the door and was monumentally relieved it was Shiro - he wasn’t sure how he would have responded if Keith had answered the door. He probably would have just left. 

“Yes?” Shiro asks with a faint smile, and Pidge was impacted both the fact that he hadn’t said anything and what he was about to ask. “You know how I did you a favor last week?” he starts, and the taller nods, a little more weary. “Do you think you could do me a favor?” Pidge continues, looking down at his shoes. “Sure, Pidge, whatever you need,” Shiro replied, voice relatively soft. “Can I borrow your cat?” he blurted out, blushing. 

“You want to… borrow my cat?” Shiro asked, eyebrows raised and head tilted, though a patient and curious shadow of a smile graced his face. Pidge murmured his assent, still not looking up. “May I ask why?” the taller asked with a genuine smile, mirroring Pidge from the week before. Pidge’s surprise also mirrored the reaction to the question before, though his was from the indication that Shiro might actually let him borrow Noir. 

“She helped me with my anxiety. Well, the whole situation kind of helped with my anxiety? Noir in my lap and you there, being there, it was good for me and, god, this is weird, isn’t it?” Pidge rambled, running one of his hands through hair that was still a bit too long. Shiro grabbed his wrist when the hair twirling and messing quickly got a mite obsessive, and he smiled down at Pidge, making the younger’s stomach go to jelly a bit. He, again, ignored any feelings that might be coming up, totally. 

“From how it sounds, it seems like I might be able to help as well. You mind if I tag along?” Shiro asked, letting go of Pidge’s wrist after maybe a second too long. Pidge had been able to talk himself into asking to borrow the cat, but to also get Shiro to come as well… that was kind of #goals. He didn’t want to have to ask to borrow a person if this didn’t work, so he was glad for Shiro’s offer. “I’d like it if you did,” Pidge said, risking a small flirtation, even as parts of his mind told him not to. This was actually giving him  _ more  _ anxiety, but it seemed like good anxiety this time, he thought. 

Shiro followed him back across the hall with Noir and a book in his arms, parking down in exactly the same spot as before when they arrived inside. “I brought a book so you can do whatever you normally do, if you’d like,” he suggested, leaning back against Pidge’s bed. Pidge was kind of… flattered, if the word was applicable, that Shiro had enough forethought to bring something to entertain himself, though he knew the feeling was a mite misplaced. He let it go this time, coaxing Noir into his lap when he sat down, the cat coming easily. 

Pidge managed to update and cycle his entire mainframe in the next hour, something that would normally take him three to five hours. It seemed like when he was able to focus on one thing at a time, instead of anxiously flitting between tabs and activities and browsers, things happened much quickly. He would have to remember that. 

He looked over, eventually, to check on the other person in his room, and found Shiro glancing over at him at the same time, causing them both to look back down to their laps, near identical blushes painting their faces. “I think I’m done,” Pidge stuttered, sticking shaking hands back into Noir’s fur, where she was purring in his lap. Before he could scare himself out of it, he asked, “Do you want to maybe grab something to eat, Shiro?” Pidge thought he might actually drop dead before Shiro closed his book, bookmark carefully placed. “I’d like it if we did,” Shiro said. 

Pidge let out a light laugh and picked up Noir as he stood. “Do you want to take her back to your room first or maybe leave her in here?” he asked, looking down at Noir and scritching her ears. Shiro appeared to consider for a moment before looking disproportionately guilty. “Her litter box is in my room, and she might need it,” he explained, and Pidge wasn’t even disappointed when given a factual rebuttal. “Alright,” he said with a cheerful tone, not fake for once, and handed the cat over. “Give me a second and we can go, alright?” he grinned, and Shiro left with a matching smile. 

He looked in the wall length mirror on his closet door and lifted up his shirt, tracing the line of his binder with his thumb, giving it a little aeration. He couldn’t let the skin get too tight, or it would hurt later. Pidge grabbed his phone and stepped outside of his door, seeing Shiro coming back towards his room after closing his own door. With an accidental misstep, Shiro and Pidge bumped shoulders, but when Pidge bumped him back… that might not have been an accident. They walked all the way to the dining hall playfully shoving at each other like children, but not saying much of anything. It was the most Shiro had smiled in, perhaps, months. 

Arriving at the dining hall, they made brief eye contact before they both walked over to what was affectionately coined as the “salad and shit” bar. It was where Pidge always went first, even if he didn’t feel like salad, and it was where Shiro got most of his meals in general. In freshman, he had eaten his body weight in pizza, but ever since he started becoming more athletic, it just felt  _ better  _ to eat healthy. 

After a few minutes, Pidge walked away from the SAS bar with a mostly empty plate, aside from a few black olives, and despite his mostly full plate, Shiro walked behind him to the Asian Fusion-esque section. This was always where Pidge ended up, no matter where he started. Once he got his food, he shrugged one shoulder to Shiro, letting the elder pick wherever they sat. Pidge was mysteriously less anxious than he typically was in the Garrison’s dining hall, but he chose not to analyse it, for once. 

A moment or so after they were sat down, Shiro looked towards Pidge with a smile. “So, what’s your major, Pidge?” he asked, and Pidge decided he liked the way Shiro said his name, even if it was distracting. “Computer Sciences,” he answered, “and you?” he asked, though he thought he knew. “I was going to major in engineering, so I could be an aeroplane engineer for the government, like my dad, but even in a civilian position, my dad’s got PTSD from working in places with combat. So, I switched majors in sophomore year, and started on the Psychology track,” Shiro seemed to realise he was oversharing after he said the word ‘PTSD,’ but Pidge didn’t mind. He only nodded. 

“Why do you have a cat at university?” he ended up asking, if only to get Shiro to keep talking. The sound of his voice was even more soothing than just his presence. The black haired man laughed briefly, more of a chuckle, it was very nice. “She kind of… chose me?” Shiro said by way of explanation, sheepish, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “She walked up to me in an alleyway, and she wasn’t looking too hot, like her ear was torn, but I tried to walk away because I was a freshman asshole, but she just kept following me. I eventually picked her up to get her paws out of the snow, and now here we are. I’m not sure what I’d do without that cat,” Shiro continued, and thought ‘Might have never met you, without Noir.’ 

“Freshman asshole, huh? I’m a freshman, you know,” Pidge said, eyes narrowed, but in a playful sort of way. Shiro rolled his eyes, but didn’t immediately respond, just looking at Pidge in a fond sort of way that made him feel simultaneously small and able to take over the world. “You’re probably the best freshman I’ve ever met,” the elder said honestly, making the blush marking Pidge’s cheeks darken. “Huh,” Pidge said eloquently. 

There was more banter throughout the rest of their meal, the nonconsequential kind, and honestly, neither Pidge nor Shiro could tell you many specifics of what was said, just the feelings that permeated around them. 

Walking back to their building, Shiro didn’t really want to leave Pidge at his room, and Pidge didn’t really want him to leave either. However, neither of them really knew how to say that, and, despite how much it felt like a date in retrospect, Shiro didn’t kiss him when he left him at his door. Instead, there was a conversation. 

“You know, you can borrow me and Noir at any time,” Shiro ended up saying, not really sure what to say, but wanting to extend the night as much as possible. He had his arm resting about a foot above Pidge’s head where he was leaning on his own doorway, unconsciously doing the “straight boy at some girl’s locker” pose. Pidge felt surprisingly safe with Shiro above him, but he wasn’t about to analyse that either. 

“Really?” he asked, adjusting his glasses in a way that Shiro found adorable. But, that may just be Pidge. “Anytime you need either of us, or both of us, it’s cool,” Shiro replied, mentally face-palming at the could-be-taken-as-a-euphemism. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Pidge was taking it that way, the only look on his face soft and grateful.  _ Shiro could get  _ **_used_ ** _ to this, to Pidge.  _ He’d like to. 

“Any time you’d - well - any time you’d like to see me, I’m free,” Pidge offered, practically yelling ‘single and  _ ready _ ’ at the sky. Shiro caught the last bit of the message, but kind of assumed that he was seeing things, having always been that kind. “What if I want to see you right now?” Shiro asked, braving up, but also having an entire mental reaction that he was glad Pidge couldn’t see, to be perfectly honestly. “Then, to stay to my word, I suppose I’m free,” he replied, small smile gracing his lips, making his entire face softer in nature. 

“Keith freaks out a little when I leave Noir alone for too long, so I’ll grab her and be right back, okay?” Shiro smiled, and Pidge nodded and then melted back into his room to wait. For an afternoon that began with overwhelming anxiety, Pidge thought, it was turning out pretty great. He had just closed his closet when Shiro re-entered his room, no knock with the previously discussed permission. 

“Hey,” Shiro said, pointlessly, as something to say. “Hi,” Pidge said with a smile, equally as pointless. “Shall we sit?” he offered, gesturing towards the floor. Shiro nodded and they both sat, though a little bit closer than they had the previous day. Close enough, in fact, that, once they were settled, Pidge knocked his knee lightly against the elder of them, smile soft. “Alright,” Shiro began, “Tell me about yourself, Pidge.” 

Pidge, who had always had trouble with questions in this vein, looked down at his lap, biting his lip in concentration. Shiro took this time to actually look at Pidge, studying the lines of the younger boy’s face with a fascination he didn’t want to explore. He looked down before Pidge looked back up, thankfully, and definitely before the other spoke. “I like peanut butter, and peanut butter cookies, but I really hate peanuts. They’re dry and awful,” he offered, nervous grin in place. 

Shiro chuckled. “A minute of soul-searching and you go on a peanut related tangent?” he teased lightly, watching as Noir crawled from his lap onto Pidge’s bed, resting herself on his pillow. Pidge laughed at himself and knocked his knee lightly against Shiro’s again. “Yeah, okay, let’s see what you come up with, Mr. Cool. Tell me about yourself, Shiro,” Pidge mirrored, eyebrows raised. Shiro too had trouble coming up with something to say about himself, before deciding on something that would promote the ‘available’ vibe he seemed to want to express.

“I came out to my mom as pansexual last February,” he volunteered, shrugging one shoulder and looking to Pidge for the other’s reaction. Pidge rolled with it, nodding slightly. “I came out to my parents as pansexual when I was fifteen,” he gave back, saving the gender conversation. “My real name is Takashi Shirogane. I’m half Japanese, and Shiro is a nickname I got on the football team in high school,” and of course, he was in football in high school. Guys who looked like Shiro could never be normal kids in the back of the classroom, no. 

“My deadname is Katie,” Pidge blurted out, like when he told Hunk, after Hunk had told him his deadname as well. Everyone thought Hunk was a fun little nickname, but Hunk had chosen it, just like Pidge had chosen his. Shiro was the third person at university that Pidge had told about Katie, right after Hunk and Lance, who had to be told three or four times before he took it for face value. Shiro, like Pidge to Shiro’s sexuality, had little to no reaction, a small nod being the only reaction Pidge could see. 

In his mind, Shiro was having approximately the same reaction, new information not changing how he was beginning to feel about Pidge. “I was wondering what kind of name  _ Pidge  _ was,” he offered with a light chuckle, attempting to lighten the mood as best as he could. Usually, when he was hanging around the dorm, that was Lance’s job, and Shiro wasn’t typically very good at it. It made Pidge smile though, and that was enough. 

Noir, perhaps sensing the subtle mood change, sauntered off of the pillow and over to lay by Pidge’s shoulder, one of her paws on his shoulder. “You know, we’re learning things about each other, and I still don’t know your last name,” Shiro said, one eyebrow raised. “It’s Holt,” Pidge replied, slightly worried Shiro might recognise it - he seemed like the type of guy who would have hung out with Matt. “Wait…,” oh here it comes, “Are you Matt Holt’s little brother?” and there it was. 

“Yes, yes I am,” he said, looking at his hands as he expected Shiro to react to him like all of his brother’s friends thought of him: a nuisance, annoying, too much. “You know, he talked about Katie all the time, told all of us all about his little sister, but I don’t think he got her quite right. She couldn’t have become you. You’re a lot more… you, than that. I just don’t think you’re the same person anymore, but that’s kind of awesome,” Shiro nodded, saying more than he had in a long time, and Pidge looked some kind of awed, barely believing a positive reaction. 

“Thanks,” Pidge stuttered, and Shiro looked over to see the nervousness, the blush, the hands twitching, the genuinely reverential look. And, mildly lengthy internal debate short, Shiro couldn’t hold himself back from leaning over, placing a soft kiss on even softer lips. Pidge made a quiet noise of shock, but melted right into it, placing his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro brought his hand up to Pidge’s face, angling both of their heads to deepen the kiss, before pulling back hesitantly. 

“That okay?” he asked, though he thought he knew the answer. In fact, there wasn’t an answer, as Pidge just kissed him again, pulling him gently forward. Shiro ended up with his torso and hips between Pidge’s already open legs, and while he was happy with the arrangement, surely, wasn’t this a little fast? Shiro pulled back again, eyes narrowed slightly, curious expression surprisingly cute. “Too fast?” Pidge asked, before the other could say anything. “Maybe a little,” Shiro replied, sitting back down almost where he was before, but close enough that they were touching. 

“You wanna watch a movie, maybe?” Pidge asked, gesturing towards his huge computer screen where it was sat on his desk, across from his bed.  _ Is this a euphemism? _ Shiro thought briefly, before considering the sincerity in Pidge’s expression. Probably not. “Sure, as long as you don’t expect me to pick. I don’t think I’m picky until I have to choose a movie,” Shiro replied, and that was that. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of the Black Cat series, because I am the worst. This was originally supposed to be like maybe 700-1000 words. I'm a mess.


End file.
